Pockets
by guiltysecret79
Summary: Torchwood isn't quite as impregnable as everyone likes to think.


Pockets

When he hears the door begin to ratchet open he begins to call out, but the words die on his lips when he sees the stranger stride into the Hub as if she owns the place.

He watches from his vantage point in his office as the woman in the strange waistcoat runs a finger along the bank of consoles Tosh constructed so long ago, peers up into the dizzying heights above and cocks her head to consider the metallic guts of Mickey's latest project where they lie strewn across the workbench and floor. The alarms that should be calling back the rest of the team remain silent though, although the war in his head between the shock of the new and a strange familiarity sets off alarm bells of its own.

Eventually she stops her exploration at the bottom of the stairs to his office. She looks up, directly at him, and even though he's motionless and silent crouching behind the desk he knows with absolute certainty that she's fully aware that he's lurking there. She snorts, clearly impatient with him.

"Oi! Captain Dishy! You can hug me if you like." she hollers, and suddenly, like a camera pulling into focus, what he's seeing makes complete, although as yet mystifying, sense. The hair colour is wrong, even the face, but perhaps that's part of why he feels so certain.

"Donna?" he calls, but it's a cautious greeting, and he'll be damned if he's going to put his gun down just yet. "You're alone?"

She snorts and nigh on skips up the metal staircase to join him. He thinks he can see the woman he met before in this stranger, although he didn't have time to get to know her well enough to be sure. The total lack of caution she exhibits in exploring his domain brings to mind someone else entirely.

She breezes into the office and he finds himself scrabbling back to his feet, feeling foolish. The uneasy edge is still there though, and he can't quite bring himself to put the firearm down.

"A gun Jack?" she smirks as she flops into his chair at the desk. "Like to see you try it, Soldier Boy." She leans forward, chin in hand to study his desk. She seems more than content to sit reading his documents and fiddling with the contents of the drawers, so he is reduced to shuffling the papers around the desk to try and keep them out of her hands. He can't help noticing how often her attention strays to the now-useless teleport that weights down a stack of old letters.

"So?" he prompts. "You. My office. Why?"

"He bloody left me, that's why! Wiped my mind and left me!" In an instant she's fiercely indignant and springs from the chair, arms flailing wildly as she paces his cramped office. It's a strange, unnerving sight; mannerisms he recognises from two other people bursting from this unfamiliar figure.

"Why?" he asks, disgusted that he's reduced to asking questions like some hopeless simpleton.

"Because..." she begins, and oh boy, the eye roll and drawn out vowels are pure, undiluted Donna Noble there, "Skinny Boy didn't think it through properly, did he? If Doctor Mark Two was more human than Time Lord, what did that make me? Stands to reason that I'd be more Time Lord than human. Time Lord enough to regenerate, anyway. Being able to regenerate isn't going to disappear just because I can't remember, is it? Genius he may be, but he's got no common sense."

"Regenerate? You died?" Jack cringes inwardly once again. He's pretty sure that there's vast acres of this story passing him by, but he finds himself seizing on the one word that makes some kind of sense in her rapid-fire rant and hoping that he'll end up somewhere he can understand.

"Yeah. Hit by a taxi in the middle of Chiswick High Street on a Friday night." she says with remarkable ease. His own first death had left him shaking and sick to the stomach for days. "Took a while for the process to get going, thankfully. Don't think it would have gone down well outside of the club if I'd done the whole..." she trails off, waving a hand vaguely in the air, "...thing there and then. Gave the mortuary guy a shock though. Had to tell him I was the new admin temp. Spent four hours being introduced to their computer system, and you wouldn't believe how much paperwork it takes to track a dead body. It's not as if they're gonna get up and walk away, is it?" she pauses and grins. "Well, not often anyway. Special circumstances and all that."

Then, she walks right up to him, huge beaming smile and all, grabs his hands and slaps them enthusiastically to her chest.

"Look! Feel! How's that for special circumstances!" she says, still grinning. Sure enough, once he's recovered from the surprise of having his hands forcefully placed on the breasts of some strange woman, he can feel two distinct heartbeats. It occurs to him that whilst he wouldn't have any objection to such unexpected events under other circumstances, this is the augmented Donna, and she's possibly more terrifying than anything he's encountered before. He also spots that she's snagged his teleport device from the desk and it's now strapped firmly to her wrist.

"And that?" He stares pointedly at his property proudly displayed on her arm. She feigns confusion and tugs at her ludicrous waistcoat.

"This? Lots of pockets. You can never have too many pockets. Never know when you might need some doodad or other." She fishes a lumpy agglomeration of wires and metal from a bulging pouch. Jack blinks as the queasy shifting focus returns and Donna's old voice paraphrasing the new in his head phases seamlessly into that of the Doctor. "Don't have a TARDIS of my own, so I have to carry it all with me."

"And what the hell is that you're waving at my teleport?" he asks pointedly, indicating the ugly thing in her hand.

The device disappears back into one of the multitude of pockets.  
"That? Almost-sonic screwdriver. Thought it might come in handy." She's near incandescent with delight now, and Jack knows without question why she's here, stealing from him.

"How will you find him?" he asks, almost involuntarily. The urge to grab her by the ridiculous pocketed jacket, to tag along with her, is intense, but he fights it down.

"Didn't you know? I'm brilliant, me! He isn't going to know what's hit him." she crows triumphantly, and slaps her free hand to the device on her wrist.

She winks out of existence, pulling the breath from him as the air rushes to fill the void left in her wake.

He draws a huge shaking breath and wonders how long it will be before they come crashing back into his life. After all, now there are two of them out there he's twice as likely to run into them as he was before, and he's got all the time in the world to wait.


End file.
